The Other Side of the Wrong Door
by hotmilkytea
Summary: [2012!SAINW!AU] On the other side of the Kraang portal, Raph has been missing for twenty years, April is gone, and his brothers have lost the war. And then Raph comes back, still a teenager, and the one thing they need to save their world once and for all.
1. Prologue -- Day three

this is the sequel fic to Information Not Found - I really suggest reading that first, as it takes place (technically) in the middle of this fic.

tmnt = viacom.

* * *

 **The Other Side of the Wrong Door  
** **Prologue: Day three**

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April doesn't know how long she's been here.

The Kraang don't talk in _years_ , they talk in _cycles_ when they talk near her at all: _one Kraang cycle, ten Kraang cycles_ , they wear stupid little party hats sometimes when they walk her from her cell to the laboratory. Sometimes, she's asleep for more than one cycle, and wakes up forcing tank fluid from her lungs and looking at the new crop of her selves gestating in the pods.

Sometimes, she wakes up still bruised from her last escape attempt.

 _At least I'm breathing_ , she tells herself, on the nights they leave her in her cell, and on the days when she hears her own voice from another mouth. _I'm still_ me. _They haven't taken that yet_.

It's been cycles since she's seen the sun.

She misses light. She marks time passing by which freckles still remain on her arms — the rash of them that cropped up when she was thirteen and in Florida are gone within the first twenty cycles. She misses her father, but she's missed him for so long now that the loss has sunk into her bones. She misses her mother, but how could she not? She misses heat, from daylight, and from warm clothes, and from hugs and affection. She misses the warmth that came without touch, and the sounds that came without noise.

It has been so long since April saw a familiar face that was not her own.

The day she gives up is the day a group of her doubles manage to escape. She watches them race down the hallway, hand-in-hand, dodging pink lasers before vanishing from sight.

They've done it, haven't they? Bested the original.

The next time she's taken to the tank, she doesn't expect to come back out again.

But she does, _every time_ , her lungs screaming at her. Sometimes, the Kraang let her sleep afterwards instead of more tests, instead of anaesthetic (they learned, quickly, that drugging her had a logical function), and sometimes, when she can't smell the incinerator, or the thick, hot scent of mutagen, she can't help herself.

They aren't coming for her. It's been too long, now.

That doesn't stop her from imagining they had.

It's better than imagining the alternatives, the realities: they forgot about her, or, they lost, or, they're all dead. It's better than replaying that night again and again — Casey's smug swagger as they'd broken in, and the way he'd howled her name when they'd been set upon by dozens and dozens of robots that dragged her away.

Once, wishing for her rescue had made her strong, and given her hope. Now, it's a comfort as she waits for the inevitable.

So on the day that Casey slams into her cell, four dozen or more cycles after she was first taken, Casey looking weatherbeaten, unshaven, and so much older than she remembers, of course she doesn't believe it.

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 **:3 part 1 in the next few days!**


	2. Part one -- Day one

I should have mentioned, oops. Timeline wise, this fic can easily slot in between _Wormquake_ and _The Lonely Mutation of Baxter Stockman_ , in season 2.

tmnt = viacom

* * *

 **The Other Side of the Wrong Door  
** **Part one: Day one.**

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Three days ago, Donnie was sitting watching a world go by, and everybody else was waiting for Donnie. Somewhere past the portal that led to the Land Of The Jellyfish, and the portal that showed a giant Kraang worm merrily terrorising the population of another New York, Raph sighed. Then again, louder. Then, louder still, he said, "So, remind me again why we're here?"

Donnie set down his clipboard, but didn't look up from the portal. "Because, Raph, there must be _hundreds_ of different dimensions here. Think of everything we could learn from them!"

"Yeah, I get that – that's why _you're_ here. Why are _we_ here?" he asked, waving a hand in a sweeping gesture from himself to where Leo and Mikey were dorking around four portals down. This was so _boring_. Why couldn't Donnie do all the weird science by himself? Leave Raph to the good stuff – the _important_ stuff – beating Kraang faces in until their creepy little tentacles waved a white flag made out of their tears.

Donnie raised his head, counted to three under his breath and on his right hand, and on cue Mikey's voice rang out: " _WHOA_ , _this_ _entire planet_ is made out of _pizza_. Can we go?"

Leo, sounding tired, said, " _No_ , Mikey" and there was the sound of a hand being gently slapped away.

"That's why," Donnie said. "Because Mikey and a big shiny new toy. Also, every single dimension here is only accessible through Kraang portals, _including_ Dimension X, and I don't know about you, but if the Kraang catch us, I quite like my shell being attached to the rest of my body."

"So, we're here to be your bodyguards."

"Yup. Consider it your contribution to science."

Raph swallowed down the comment about how the only contribution science wanted from him or his brothers was a nice, slow dissection (or that other word that was just the same, except done while they were awake), and settled for rolling his eyes, instead.

"C'mon, Raph," Donnie added, scooting on the edge of his shell to the next portal. Raph hadn't seen Donnie this excited since the last time he'd stolen a centrifuge (he had, like, ten now). "You can't say you're not the littlest bit interested in _different universes_? I mean, did you read my notes on the one we let the worm into?"

"Nope."

"There were _other turtles_ there! Us! So if there are more dimensions where other versions of us exist–"

"That means there are multiple Mikeys."

"–and millions of _you_ , but my point is, _what's the point_?"

"Free-for-all?" Leo quipped, steering Mikey away from the universe run by a giant cat overlord. "Last Raph standing?"

Donnie made a show of rolling his eyes, his head lolling to the right. Raph, though, felt the grin creep across his face, and only part of it was to spite Donnie. "Yeah, I'd take that challenge." He flexed his arms for good measure.

"There's a universe where we turn into dragons and sparkle during battle," Donnie said flatly. "But go right ahead."

"Speaking of," Leo said. "You were saying?"

Donnie gestured idly to Metalhead's head, and his laptop, both sticking out of his satchel. "Well, I used what I could salvage from Metalhead's memory to get the algorithms the Kraang use to operate the portals so we can find out what it is they're after – technically, there are infinite possibilities, but there's obviously not infinite portals here, so–"

"Science, we get it," Raph interrupted.

Donnie glared. "And," he bit out, "there are _patterns_. Wherever there's Kraang, there's some variation of us — at least, as far as I can tell. Wherever there's an us, there's an April. But for some reason, the Kraang don't seem to be _interested_ in those _other_ Aprils, just _our_ April."

"I'm not following."

"My point is, meathead, that there are literally _millions and millions of Aprils_ out there. The Kraang could just walk through a portal and pick one up like they're at the mall, if they wanted, but they only seem to want _ours_. So by studying the other universes they've got lined up here, maybe we can find out what's so special about her." Donnie's mouth pulled into a thoughtful frown. "A lot of these worlds are really _different_ though – not just the jellyfish, but there's a universe where Leo's running around in a trenchcoat and terrible sunglasses and the Foot are in control, and one where we're all still babies and I _think_ April's adopted us, and then," he said, snotty and smug, "there's the universe where Raph is an anti-intellectual troglodyte – _oh, wait,_ that's ours."

Raph aimed a kick at the bottom of Donnie's shell. "Very funny."

Donnie took the kick with a smirk and scooted along to another portal. Leo shrugged, failing at hiding his own smile. "He has a point, Raph," he said placatingly, and patted Raph's shoulder as he passed by to go look at some other weird place. "The more we know about the portals, the better a shot we've got against the Kraang."

Raph rolled his eyes and looked over Donnie's head into the new universe: a tropical beach and, following Donnie's gaze, a pretty coppery mermaid. When Raph looked closer, his brother was _staring_ , his jaw slack, and aw jeez, okay, _no_. Raph was not going to sit and watch Donnie moon over every April in the multiverse. He got to his feet. Maybe he could convince Leo to take over, and he could haul Mikey back home.

Maybe he could find a universe that was actually interesting to watch.

They hadn't found a universe where he was fighting dinosaurs in a giant arena, yet, or one where Mikey was running around New York as a superhero.

"Fine," he said, swiping at the clipboard Donnie somehow produced from the middle of nowhere and tucking it under his arm. "I'll go check up here."

He didn't wait for Donnie to reply – Donnie was too busy humming _Kiss the Girl_ , probably – before glancing through portals, his eyes narrowing when he saw a turtle in a trenchcoat facing off against a dork in a mask and filed that knowledge away - that in some universes, Casey Jones had discovered what _working out_ meant.

The next portal, thirty seconds later and across the corridor, looked like regular old New York. A little flashier, maybe? But ultimately, just New York. A blur of green caught his eye and – sure, okay. Why not.

He sat and watched, ticking off boxes on Donnie's stupid clipboard – _yes,_ there were other turtles, _no_ , he hadn't seen another April, _yes_ , there were Kraang–

There were Kraang, surrounding a lone turtle, in the middle of an alley.

There were Kraang, surrounding a lone turtle, _in an orange bandana_ , in the middle of an alley. And Mikey was losing. Two against one, and _these_ Kraang were bigger, more solid-looking, than the ones Raph was used to watching Mikey take apart with a chain and some spit.

Donnie – and Leo – had said it very clearly, several times: do not go through the portal, _definitely_ don't do it alone, and definitely, _definitely_ , do not get involved with whatever it may be that inspires you to go cannonballing into an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE.

But seriously, how bad could it be? It wasn't like either of them would just _leave_ a Mikey to fend for himself. He looked at the portal, then back to his brothers. One way in, one way out – that was how Donnie had said it worked. He could jump in, even the odds a little, maybe pound a face in or three, and then jump back out. Nice and easy. No harm done, right?

Bonus: Donnie would _freak_.

Double bonus: _Leo_ would freak.

And the icing on the cake would be that Raph could be doing something with his time that wasn't _babysitting_.

So he jumped.

Passing through felt like he'd spilled soda on himself, fizzing at his skin and under his shell, and he dropped neatly to a fire escape above the alley. From here he could see the fight more clearly: Mikey grim-faced and coping, but it was just that – coping; waiting for back-up. Mikey wasn't a terrible ninja, Raph knew that better than anybody, but he also knew that Mikey knew how to win a fight, and how to deal with one he couldn't get away from. He dodged instead of taking the hit, weaved between his enemies to keep them off-balance, favoured the kusarigama instead of getting up close with his 'chuks.

 _Well_ , Raph thought. Back-up was right here. He cricked his neck to either side, already craving the fight. _This_ was what Raph was good at, not sitting around with a clipboard; protecting Mikey was about caving in the face of whatever was after him, not holding his hand to make sure he didn't get lost.

"Hey, Starscream!" he yelled. The left robot turned. There was a little glass casing in the chest cavity, with a Kraang pilot inside, and Raph threw himself off of the fire-escape, hurling all of his weight feet-first at the glass at the same time that Mikey yanked the chain that had wrapped around a metal leg. The impact slammed through Raph's feet, shaking him in his shell, and as the machine staggered off-balance, Raph flipped neatly to the ground, pulling his shoulders in and throwing himself again.

Raph was a battering ram, a wrecking ball. He came in and got the job done.

On the opposite fire-escape, two more shadows materialised, shades in the dark before they slalomed into the light, weapons drawn and blurring. Raph saw the whites of their eyes in the corner of his own a second before they both slammed into the second robot.

 _Now_ the odds were a little better. "That wasn't so hard," Raph said, turning to look at this universe's version of his brothers. So much for in and out. "Sorry to just bust in here, but you looked like you could use a–" _–hand_ , was what he meant to say, but his jaw slammed shut when someone started screaming. It took him a moment to understand _who_ was screaming – Mikey, backing up with one finger pointing directly at Raph.

Of all the things Raph had expected (like, _hey thanks_ or _nice work_ ), his brother screaming in his face was not on the list. "Mikey–" he started, taking a step forward, but Mikey backed off, still pointing, and _still screaming_. "Okay, seriously, knock it off!"

"Oh my god." Still staring at Raph, Donnie reached down and gently covered Mikey's mouth. "Raph– _ow_!" He yanked his hand back, and Mikey spat to the side, looking briefly aggrieved before resuming his pointing.

"That's not Raph. That can't be Raph! Look at him, Donnie!"

"I am! But–"

"Donnie," There was gravel in Leo's voice that shouldn't have been there; Raph's gut tensed at the sound of it. "What are the chances that–"

"Infinitesimal. But there's still a chance. Same as we always do." Donnie pressed his mouth into a thin line, his brow bunching behind his mask. "Raph–"

To their rear, one of the robots staggered to its feet.

Leo drew his swords again. "We can talk about this later – get into position! We take them down, we go home."

"And Donnie gets two shiny new toys," Mikey put in, though the humour was flat.

This time, Raph thought, the fight should have been easier. He knew his brothers, he knew how they fought: Mikey and Donnie running distraction while he brought power and Leo brought finesse. When Leo struck, he struck true; when Donnie ran defence, nothing got past him. Mikey was a blur of laughter and skill.

Except it was all _wrong_.

Where Leo should have had Raph's back, Leo had Donnie's. Where Donnie and Mikey should be together, Mikey was with Leo. They fought in a triangle, closed-ranks and silent, and there was no room for him.

Fighting alone wasn't the thing that scared Raph. He could handle himself. But it was either that, or in a group – not some kind of an in-between.

He didn't fit, here.

By the time Raph felt the fight in his shoulders, he recognised it again, same as with Mikey – they weren't fighting to win. Their blades were glancing off of joints, barely scratching metalwork. They were holding out for back-up.

"Leo, where the hell are they!?" Donnie yelled. Leo didn't answer.

"Where are wh– _whoa_ ," Raph started, ducking the crack of a pink whip. "Who are we waiting for?"

"Friends," Leo bit out grudgingly. "Shut up and focus!"

Back home, Raph would have told Leo exactly what he could focus on ( _my foot, in your shell_ ), but this wasn't his Leo.

"HEY GUYS," someone yelled from a rooftop – a voice Raph knew, but couldn't place. "THE CAVALRY'S HERE. WE BROUGHT TOYS."

"Yes!" Mikey yelled. "Fireworks time!"

"Donnie and Mikey, go with him," Leo barked out, as two more shapes dropped into the alley. "Raph, you're with me. Angel, wait for your shot!"

"Wait, what?" the woman said, a second before she threw herself out of the way of Mikey as he went pinballing past. " _Raph_!?"

"Why is this so surprising!?" Raph yelled, as Leo hauled him to robot number 2. It was even uglier now they'd beaten it down a little. The protective glass casing had shattered, leaving the Kraang inside to pig-squeal at them, and the left arm stuttered from the impact with the wall. "Why is this such a big deal!? What am I, dead here or something?" He looked to Leo as he said it, throwing an arm out to the side, and he stared when his brother – this version of his brother – bit down on his lip and resolutely did not answer. "Leo…?"

"On my mark," Leo said instead, nodding forward. "We get it into position for Angel."

"Who the hell is Angel!?"

"Just shut up and do as I say!"

"Well hey, if I didn't already know you were Leo, there's the proof!" Raph snarled, but did what Leo said.

"Now!"

Leo went high and Raph went low, throwing his weight into the legs of the robot with his shoulder. It staggered, then caught Raph as he rebounded, slamming its foot into his gut. Leo yelled Raph's name as he landed shell-first on the tarmac and changed direction, neatly sliding to guard as the robot – dimly, Raph realised that Mikey hadn't tried to name this one yet – lashed out with the whip again.

Raph watched, winded and helpless, as the thick pink band of light reared back and slapped the portal device out of the air. As the little contraption fell, Raph watched the shimmer of the portal closing, a flash of his Mikey's panicked face there before the sky filled in the gap.

"Angel!" Leo ordered, and the whip was now wrapped around his swords. "Take it down."

Raph heard the sound of the shotgun before he saw it, pump-action like the ones on TV. Then he heard a sound like thunder, like roaring, like a bomb going off, and he hit the deck again out of sheer self-preservation. Guns – _real_ guns – hadn't come anywhere near their part of New York, at least not in the fights Raph had been in.

The robot closest to Leo dropped to one knee, smoke hissing from the joint. The woman shot again, and took out the other knee. It hit the ground, head bowed. Leo cut its neck. Power drained out of it, and it made a soft, droning sigh as the lights went out.

To Raph's left, the other robot – the one Mikey and Donnie and the other human was taking care of – didn't seem to care about its fallen comrade, and kept coming.

Angel reloaded, and shot the Kraang in the face.

Groaning, Raph reached up, peeling a wet tentacle off of his head and flicking it aside. He forced down the sourness in his throat and turned, surveying the alley as he got back to his feet. The woman – Angel – was reloading her shotgun as Mikey pulled Leo up to standing.

 _Okay_ , he told himself, taking the moment to catch his breath and count the things he'd just seen. Big Kraang droids, still piloted by a nice squishy weak spot – that here, they weren't afraid to target with things other than fists. Two humans, clad in black. And then, his brothers.

They all looked like they'd spent a year or two going through the wringer; even in the dark, Raph could make out the thick gouges in the scutes on Leo's plastron. Something dark caught at his gut – not-quite-half worry, not-quite-half fear, because Leo was _good_ , he'd always been good, and yet something had almost taken a chunk out of him.

He counted again. Two humans, three turtles. Purple, blue, orange.

 _What am I, dead here?_

Not-quite-half panic.

He forced it away, taking a deep breath and plastering on his default cocky smile. "…so, this is awkward," he said, palming the portal device and tossing it once, before holding it out to his brothers. "Uhhh, Donnie. You think you can turn this back on?"

The tall, human guy at Leo's left reeled back, gloved hand covering his mouth in revulsion. Raph caught the flash of black space instead of white teeth – _Casey?!_ – before the man spoke.

"Holy _fuck_ ," Casey said, half-way between anger and grief. "They're making Raphs now, too?"

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 **tbc.**


	3. Part two -- Night one, Day two

short chapter, this takes place between, and is mostly filling the gaps between, _Information Not Found_ and the prologue! thank you so much for commenting and following - it really means a lot. this fic is my most precious baby and I'm so happy people are enjoying it!

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 **The Other Side of the Wrong Door  
Part 2: Night one, Day two.**

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The code, the night they had gotten Raph back to base, after twenty games of twenty questions, had been yellow **.** Leo had asked him question after question, and Donnie had been far too interested in the old crack in his shell for comfort, tapping the points that had been worn down as Raph had aged and grown.

Then, when Leo was satisfied, he and Mikey headed out for patrol. Casey stayed up for first watch, and Raph and Donnie went to bed, Raph sacking out on Donnie's floor, listening to the deeper noise of his little brother's breathing.

Raph couldn't help but make the obvious comparison. His Donnie slept on his back, snored a bit, talked in his sleep, drooled some nights to the point he got crusty dry flaking at the side of his mouth some days in the winter. When they were little, Donnie had been the worst fidget — worse than Mikey, even — feet and hands hitting anything they could.

This Donnie slept like the dead.

Silent. Flat on his belly. Didn't move. His hand was a heavy, cool weight on Raph's shell, and Raph wasn't sure if it was to make sure Raph was still there, or make sure Raph couldn't leave.

And then, April had arrived.

And Raph had watched his brother put her to sleep, like a sick, sad little dog.

Raph had sat in the kitchen with Donnie and Casey until Leo and Mikey came back from the surface, and then watched as Mikey hauled Donnie into a bear-hug, as Leo had pressed his finger and thumb between his eyes, as Casey had sloped off to handle the disposal, and come back in covered in ash.

Casey and Donnie had developed a system, Raph learned. One would put the clone out, the other would deal with the body, trading with each-other so that they never had to deal with this whole mess all alone.

There had been a day of quiet to follow, and Raph had never been left on his own – someone was always in the room with him. Mostly Casey, but sometimes Mikey. Once or twice he'd seen the human woman — Angel — but that was about it. Leo never really hung around, always looking at Raph like he was waiting for Raph to shed his skin and start talking like a Kraang.

Donnie was busy playing with the portal device.

"I thought you just had to turn it on," Raph had said at one point, brow raised. "What's stopping it from working?"

"It probably took a knock when it fell. No big deal, but…" Donnie had not met Raph's gaze. "Raph," he said slowly, quietly, and Raph felt a rock start a slow, steady descent into his stomach. Donnie looked over his shoulder, as though making sure that Leo wasn't lurking in the corner. "I know you're not our Raph. I know you don't have to have any loyalty to us at all. But… if you wouldn't mind, for a couple of days… I think we can use this."

"For what?"

"For April. Our April. I think I know where they're keeping her. I think we can use this to get her back."

* * *

 **Night Three:**

"On my mark," said Leo, when the plans were made, and Donnie bathed them all in the pink light of the portal, and Raph watched his brothers slip into the light.

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 **:3 part 3 soon!**


	4. Part three -- Day four

and now we get to the meat of the story :D

again, thank you guys so much for reading and following along!

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 **The Other Side of the Wrong Door  
Part 3: Day four.**

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Raph drags his hands over his face when Casey slips out of Donnie's room. "How's she doing?" he asks. Since they got back, bloodied and beaten and carrying the most precious thing they've found in years, the lair has been on alert, and all efforts to send Raph _home_ have been put on hold. The Kraang are _pissed_.

Casey glances back towards April's temporary bedroom, and in a sharp, swift moment that goes as quickly as it arrives, Raph feels a thump of empathy in his shell for Donnie – _his_ Donnie – when he sees the soft look on Casey's face as he thinks about someone else.

"She'll be okay," Casey says. "She's got us."

"Yeah, that didn't answer my question," Raph shoots back, back to form. "I said, _how's she doing_?"

"She's asleep, smart-ass." He sinks heavily into the couch, raking a hand through his hair. "Guess we'll find out when she wakes up."

Raph nods. _When_ she wakes up is a better word than _if_ she wakes up. He wasn't there when Casey found April, but he watched Casey haul her back, Donnie hovering while Leo and Mikey lead the rest of the escape, and he watched Casey pace for the past four hours while Donnie did his medic thing. Some things never change – Casey has always paced, long, loping strides while he marches past whatever's eating him.

"So, how are _you_ doing?"

Casey hesitates. "I'm good," he says, instead of what he really wanted to say, and Raph shoots him a flat look. After half a week, he's sick of this, now, the way everybody blocks him, tempering what they say with _careful, this isn't our Raph, this Raph's just a kid_. Yeah, well Raph's _just a kid_ who spent the last six months in the middle of an alien war. Even if they'd spent ten years mulching the hoards of the undead, he could handle it.

"Well, you look like crap. Seriously, man."

The dry look Casey gives him is the same one that _his_ Casey gives him, the _well duh_ face he knows so well. Of course Casey is going to look like crap after the night they've all just had. Raph's own muscles are aching, dull and tired from the fight. If this is the future, his brothers are in for hell when they get here. Raph's not a strategist – not like his Leo, or his Donnie – but he knows enough that there's things here he needs to take home with him, to warn the others about when he gets back.

If he gets back.

He shoves himself up off the couch. "I'm gonna go make coffee," he says. "You in?"

"Nah, I'm good."

 _The hell you are_ , Raph thinks, but doesn't say anything as he drags himself over to the kitchen. Once Donnie had given them a cursory all-clear, Leo and Mikey had both sacked out, leaving the base eerily silent compared to home; when Raph closes his eyes, he can't hear the subway humming through the tracks, or the burbling from the arcade machine out in the den. Instead, there's just the occasional shuffling of whoever's on watch, but Casey only seems to be watching one door in particular. Donnie's taken watch over April, and Raph doesn't have the heart to try to peel his older, younger brother away. So Casey's getting a damn coffee, whether he wants it or not.

He'll make one for Donnie, too. Just to remind the geek that a) he needs to put things in his body that aren't more anxiety, and b) Raph is still here, and loves him even if _this_ Raph – the Raph that this version of his family has lost – isn't here anymore.

By the time he gets back from the kitchen balancing three mugs on a magazine, Casey's still sitting down, his long shaggy hair falling over his face as his breathing comes in long, even passes – asleep. Raph sets the coffee down on the other end of the table, too used to _his_ Casey jerking awake like a dog that's just smelled food. This Casey doesn't even shift when Raph pads past.

Donnie's room is so obviously _Donnie's_ that Raph still can't stop himself from rolling his eyes even after sleeping here for the better part of a week – a battered periodic table is pinned to one wall, and there are blueprints and plans scattered everywhere, hastily shoved aside along with Raph's own bedroll. Donnie's asleep too, sitting on a kick-stool next to his occupied bed, with his elbow propped on the bedside table. A sad little lamp is on in the corner – the only source of light in the room. If it wasn't for the lines around Donnie's mouth, the different shade of the replacement mask, the chips in the shell, Raph would almost think he was home. "Hey."

Donnie jolts in his seat, awake. "'m up," he slurs, his hand automatically darting to April's wrist. He squints blearily through the dark. "Raph?"

"Yeah." He hands the coffee over, then nods to the lump in Donnie's bed. "How's the patient?"

Donnie gives a little shrug, then buries his beak into the rim of the mug, breathing in before swallowing a mouthful.

"That good, huh?"

Donnie shrugs again, and Raph heaves a sigh. "Look," he says, "if you wanna go crash somewhere, I can stay with April."

"April thinks you're dead."

"Yeah, she probably thinks _everyone's_ dead," Raph points out. "aside from the guy outside. _Don't–_ " he starts, as Donnie shrugs _again_. "–shrug, dammit, Donnie, I was just saying."

The breath that Donnie gives out is long and exhausted – a different type of exhaustion than Raph is used to. His Donnie gets exhausted with little stuff, like explaining stuff (to Mikey), and fixing stuff (that Mikey broke). Sometimes he gives this big, world-weary sigh and shuts himself off in his lab and comes out an hour or two later to make coffee, and watch TV. But this one's wearier; Donnie sinks with it into his shell and doesn't come up for air.

Raph doesn't like it one bit.

"I know, Raph," Donnie says, resting his chin on the lip of his plastron.

Donnie always knows.

But it doesn't change the fact, that April was locked up in a Kraang tank for the past however-many years.

She might hate them.

She might be _crazy_.

They won't know until she wakes up, either way, and Raph knows Donatello enough to know that he's going sit there, going through every single possibility he can think of, and zeroing in on the worst ones, until she does. Usually, you have to give Donnie a distraction, but Raph can't see one in this room that won't earn him the stinkeye – _hey, Donnie, tell me about this piece of robot lying on the floor while your girlfriend's in a coma right there_. So he defaults to option #2 – to make Donnie feel awkward, instead.

He looks pointedly at where Donnie still has his thumb on April's wrist and clears his throat and, sure enough, Donnie jumps a little, then carefully sets April's hand back on the bed. _Oh man, Donnie_ , Raph thinks. Because it's sad enough that _his_ Donnie's got a thing for April, but _his_ Donnie hasn't been blaming himself for letting the Kraang get their hands on her for twenty years.

It's not that Raph doesn't like April – far from it – but it's not hard to look at his family, and the choices they've had to make, and wonder _what if_.

Donnie clears his throat, and looks far too eager to change the subject. "Look, Raph, I– I know we need to get you home," he says, flexing his hands before clenching his fists and pressing them into his knees. "And I promise, tomorrow, I'll start working on it again."

"Tomorrow's fine. Besides," Raph says, and lifts a shoulder in a shrug. "If _you're_ not, my Donnie is."

Donnie smiles. It's weak, but it's there. "No doubt."

Raph's Donnie will also, probably, be planning the lecture in Powerpoint form – each slide explaining, in detail, just how dumb Raph was, all of which Donnie will helpfully narrate in his snottiest voice.

For once, Raph thinks, he might just let him.

* * *

Casey takes over watch a couple hours later, and Donnie takes Casey's room, sacking out on top of the covers with his hand on Raph's carapace again. An hour or two later, Raph wakes up to the sound of screaming, and Donnie hurling himself out of the door.

April's awake.

Of course Raph follows.

The whole lair is up, all of the lights flaring, and Donnie slams into April's room at the same time Casey races across from the bathroom. Angel, the long purple streak in her hair mussed halfway around her head, yanks her door open.

"Jones, what the hell–" she starts, as Casey charges past.

"I just went to take a leak, she was fine, she was asleep!"

"Well she's sure as hell not now!"

Casey gives her an impatient look, before he slides into April's room as well, the door closing gently behind him.

Leo slips out of Angel's room behind her, grinding the heel of his hand into his eyes. He hasn't even bothered to put his mask on. "I take it she's awake?" he asks.

Raph raises an eyebrow. "What tipped you off? The screaming, or the Donnie Express?"

Leo gives him the shitlook. It's sharper than it used to be, and it has just about the same effect. "This isn't the first time this has happened, Raph," he says.

"Yeah, I saw _that_ the night I got here," Raph shoots back. "You can stop talking to me like I'm your kid brother, Leo."

Mikey cuts Leo a look across Raph's head before he can point out the obvious. "It's not gonna be like May, Leo." He says it defensively, and Leo just shakes his head, his hand touching gently at the base of Angel's back. "We found April, this time; she didn't find us. That's gotta be worth something, right?"

Leo makes a frustrated noise in his throat.

"Right?" Mikey prompts again, and Leo's shoulders drop.

"Fine," he says, fatalistically. "Let's see how this goes."

"Leave them to it," Angel tells him. "Mikey's got a point," she adds, flashing Mikey a crooked smile.

Leo huffs at her. "Right. Like I said, _let's see_."

They all fall quiet, then. April's voice bleeds through the door, cutting through the soft tenor of Donnie's voice: " _this isn't real this isn't real this isn't real this isn't real–_ " The lights dim, and then die; someone, probably Leo, claps twice and they switch back on.

"You wanna come away from this," Mikey says, tugging firmly on Raph's elbow. Instinctively, Raph looks down to jerk his arm away, and then has to look up. Mikey's taller now than his Donnie is – and the Donnie here is taller still. Raph is still a short-shit, and that's just another reason for him to not die or vanish anywhere, because he is not ending his life _shorter than Mikey_.

Mikey doesn't let go, though, and leads Raph away from April's room (" _no, you're_ not _Casey; you would have come back for me by now_ , _this isn't_ real" she says, and Raph just feels cold), out into the rest of the lair.

Part of Raph's indignant – he's _not a kid_ , they don't need to keep babying him all the time considering he's the reason they were even able to get April back in the first place. But when all Raph can hear when he strains to listen is his brother – both of them – quiet and hushed and trying to cement April in the here-and-now, he's glad that the door is shut, and gladder still that Mikey's hauling him away.

 _This isn't the first time_.

Like it had happened before – keeping an April around, instead of just offing her on sight. Mikey tugs him over by the air-hockey table, something they must have brought with them when the last lair fell, and leans up against it, dragging a hand over his face. "What a mess," he says, with a thread of humour.

"That's an understatement," Raph says, and Mikey quirks a smile.

"Donnie'll get you home soon enough."

"It's okay," Raph says hurriedly. Because yeah, he wants to go home, but at the same time, things are so messed up here, that leaving feels wrong. Feels like abandonment. _No turtle left behind_ , that was their rule, so how could he even consider leaving three? "What's another couple of days, right? There are worse places to be."

Mikey's smile twists, all the way into Raph's gut. "Yeah, I guess."

"Look," Raph starts, then has to shake himself, because it's so weird to _ask_ Mikey something, when at home he can just _tell_ Mikey to do something. Mikey's all grown up right now, and Raph's not. "What's the deal with the clones?"

"Yeaaaaah, Leo didn't want you to know, but I was waiting for you to ask. See, we tried to be nice to them? The clones, I mean. But they just kinda… break."

"Break how?"

Mikey taps a knuckle to the side of his head. "They just break. _No comprende_. Keine Ahnung. They'd start talking funny, and acting funny. One of 'em tried to pull a knife on Casey, once – that was fun."

"So now you just…"

Mikey shrugs. "Leo said something about dignity. Better to let them die then let them turn into that. I think he said it more for Donnie than anything else - it was _killing_ him. I mean, it still is, but what can we do? We had to bring them in, just in case–"

"In case one of them was the real April," Raph fills in, his stomach chilling. He'd dodged a bullet.

"Right," Mikey says gently. "Which is the reason we didn't just blow the place up from the outside. In case April was still in there… or our you. At least now we know."

"So what happened in May?"

Mikey's smile drops to the floor so fast Raph can hear it break. "May was the one we kept the longest. We thought we could fix her."

"You called her May?" Raph asks. Mikey narrows a glare at him.

"We weren't gonna call her _April_ , were we?"

Raph folds his arms.

"And she was okay with that."

"She had to be. No way Donnie would have called her April. Casey, too. Nobody would. She wasn't like the others."

Raph doesn't think about what he saw the other night.

 _I know. Go to sleep, April_.

Mikey turns away, punching the button to start up the air-hockey table, and Raph recognises it as Mikey's way of shutting the conversation. The table shudders to life with a motorised buzz, and Mikey slides a mallet along the table.

"You really wanna play air-hockey when April's screaming in there?" Raph asks, archly.

"I really want to sit here not thinking about it until she's okay to come out," Mikey replies. He hunches his shoulders, like he's got water trapped in his shell. "Besides, don't you feel that? That's April."

Raph scrunches his face. "I don't feel anything." He concentrates, but no – nothing feels different at all. A little cold, maybe, but no more than home, before they turn the space heaters on in the fall.

"Huh," Mikey says. "Does your April not have the thing?"

"The thing?"

"The brain thing."

Raph shrugs. "She knocked out a bunch of Kraang once, if that's what you mean."

"Mm-hm." Mikey slings the puck along the table. "You're first up. And I guess that'll come later."

The way Mikey says it turns Raph's stomach into a pit, snakes coiling in his gut. It's not even a change-of-subject, it's _something's coming and welp have fun with that_. They've all been really, really careful to _not_ mention events from their past besides the obvious – April, and the clones, and the Kraang; the things they can't hide. Raph doesn't know what's coming, though – hell, he doesn't even know what April _is_ , none of them do, aside from somebody the Kraang decided to have genetic LEGO fun-time with before she was born. She can blast Kraang, and track mutants who are feeling sad.

So what else is there about April that they don't know about?

"Raph," Mikey prompts, tapping his mallet on the side of the table. "Stop thinking about it. It's not gonna do you no good, not right now."

 _Shhh. It'll be over soon._

* * *

 **part 4 soon! this fic is basically finished and is just getting tweaks before going up, so!**


	5. Part four -- Day five

onward!

again, thank you guys so much for reading and following along! I hope you're enjoying it and it's a real treat to see what you guys are saying :D

* * *

 **The Other Side of the Wrong Door  
Part 4: Day five.**

* * *

The next time April wakes up, it's eight am.

Angel helps her to the bathroom to wash the Kraang off of her, which leaves Donnie and Casey sitting around like a pair of anxious dogs, tails thumping on the floor. Donnie _should_ be working on the portal device now that April's awake, but somehow, Raph can forgive the delay – because he knows what happens when Donnie works on something when he's distracted, and it usually ends up in things exploding.

An hour later, April slips out of the bathroom, pink and clean and damp with a meek little smile on her face. "Hey, guys," she says. "Long time no see."

Nothing can stop Mikey, not even middle-age, because he slams April back two feet with the force of his hug. He only puts her down when she threatens to hurl all down his shell, and when Donnie starts squawking about pressure and ribs.

The lair is well-lit, for an underground bunker, and it's smaller than the lair Raph is used to, but everything just feels _brighter_ , and _warmer_ , even to Raph. So he can't imagine what April must be feeling – Donnie and Casey both are lit up like it's Christmas, Mikey hasn't stopped with the hugs, and even Leo's smiling at her, though it doesn't quite reach his eyes.

April corners him on it a few hours later. Angel has loaned her clothes – but Angel's a lot bigger, all muscle and thighs compared to April who was bird-like even before she spent half her life on gel-food. The t-shirt hangs off of her, belted with one of Donnie's spare masks, and the jeans are held up with one of Mikey's, a bright slash of orange at her waist. Leo is already wincing at the sight of her before April even speaks.

"You don't know if I'm the real one, do you?" she asks.

In the corner of Raph's eye, Leo shifts, guilty. Of course he doesn't. It's been years since the Kraang hauled April in – even April doesn't seem sure, now, in the face of someone else's doubt. Leo opens his mouth, then closes it without saying a thing. "Bullshit," Casey interjects, from the other side of the couch. "She's April."

"We don't know that for sure." Leo says, and Casey rolls his eyes.

"Guess I'll find out." April smiles weakly, trying for humour, but it falls flat. She lets it. If she's a failed copy, Raph figures, eventually something will slip. They haven't told her what happened to the other clones, yet. Raph doesn't think she's even asked. The thick wrap of guilt that blankets his brothers is covering horrors that, if this April _is_ April, she's just not ready to hear. Maybe she won't ever be ready.

"Of course we know," Donnie says, glaring at Leo, and reaches over, taking her right arm in his left hand. He turns it over, and runs a finger parallel to a thin line on her forearm, almost invisible against her sunless skin. "See this?"

"Yeah, it's a scar," April answers.

Donnie nods. "When did you get it?"

"Uh. When I was sixteen."

"Right." Donnie's smiling, and now, so is Mikey. "How?"

April furrows her brow. "I threw my fan and missed catching it. My aunt dragged me to the ER for stitches– Donnie, why–"

"Right," he interrupts. "You got this three weeks after Master Splinter first gave you your weapon," he says softly. "Scars can't be cloned. They're not genetic, you can't– you can't _fake_ them. This is yours. This is _you_ , April."

"That's how we know that Raph's not a clone either. The crack in his shell," Mikey adds, as Donnie nods, and of course every damn person in the room gawks at the lightning-bolt in Raph's plastron, and the ragged snap over his shoulder. "He's had that ever since we were, like, babies – if the Kraang were gonna copy that, they'd have to cut it into him, but it's all old."

"It's worn," Donnie clarifies helpfully. "Worn down by fifteen years of Master Splinter throwing us around the dojo, for one. You can't fake that either. We lived a very specific life. So trust me, April. The only way you got that scar is because you sucked at boomeranging your tessen."

"I didn't _suck_ ," April shoots back. "I was a rookie. There's a difference."

"Aaand that's the other clue." Mikey grins. April snarks back, and Leo neatly slinks away. Raph catches Angel's eye, and she just shrugs back. Leo's gone off to sulk, or whatever, and there's nothing they can really do about it right now.

* * *

Now that April's back in action – kinda, Donnie keeps fussing and Casey keeps shading around and April keeps blowing them both off in favour of training with Mikey and Angel – Raph figures it's only a matter of days before Donnie figures out that Raph has places to be and futures to avoid. But he's a nice guy. He's a patient guy. What's two days when Donnie's spent the past two decades drowning in guilt? Donnie spent three weeks getting two hours of sleep a night after the Pulverizer got turned into goop, back then, and only stopped once his neck seized up from too many nights sleeping over his desk. So when this is _April…_

And Casey's no better.

In fact, now that April's back, and the Kraang are prowling the streets above, it seems like a lot of the fight has gone out of the little group. The only people who can go topside are Casey and Angel; the only person who's willing to go topside without beating everything down is Angel.

Considering the Kraang have had April as their guest for the past twenty years, it's weird, to Raph, that this New York looks almost the same as his New York. These are the Kraang who tried to run a full-scale invasion, and keep trying to piss mutagen from the top of very tall buildings onto the unsuspecting populace below. By now, Raph was kind of hoping that there might be a few more mutants walking around.

He asks Casey, and Casey looks to Mikey, and Mikey twists his mouth and says, "You'll find out in your time, I guess?"

Which is a bullshit excuse, and Raph tells him as much. "Look," Mikey says, over breakfast. "It's like in that show with the magic box and the time-dude. If you go back and change a tiny thing, it might change other stuff."

Raph can't exactly see a problem with that. "April's been in a tank for twenty years. If I go home and we can tear down the Kraang a little earlier because you guys tipped me off, where's the harm?" he asks. Mikey shrugs, and goes back to his breakfast and that– that _really_ pisses Raph off.

So he goes to Leo. "Seriously," he says. "What's the problem?"

"Because if you do," Leo says, in that stuck-up tone of voice he always uses when he thinks he's the only one who might have thought of that particular idea. "they might get April another way. Or maybe the Foot will still be around. Or maybe–"

"Or maybe, _maybe_ , we get April back, and then we ice the Foot _and_ the Kraang and then we all live happily ever after, how about that?"

Leo turns to leave. He actually _turns to leave_.

"I can't have this conversation with you," he says.

"Why not?" Raph gets to his feet and folds his arms, because he's so done with Leonardo trying to be a martyr. He _always_ does this, sulks away and acts like the world is on his shoulders and how nobody could _possibly_ _understand_ the pressure he's under – and then goes right along to someone else to whine. Sensei, usually, but Raph knows that April has gotten an earful on more than one occasion. Leo acts like he's sucking it up, when Raph, and Donnie – hell, even Mikey – could all give Leo a healthy tip or eight on what _sucking it up_ actually means, and it's not Leo's _poor me_ routine.

He wishes he was twenty-one already, so he could buy Angel a drink.

"Why not, Leo?" he says again, instead. Leo stops at the door. "Because I'm _just a kid_?"

" _Yes_."

"Oh, good, that was easy. 'Cause, see, here I was thinkin' it'd be that, or the fact I'm not _your_ Raphael, or the fact you can't even stand to look at me because – and this is just a guess here, Leo, but I'm _guessing_ that you've spent the last twenty years moping around, thinking that it's your fault I never came back. Yeah, I thought so," he adds, when Leo glares at him. "You know, I hope that Angel has a clue-by-four, 'cause you really need one."

Leo's shoulders pull back. "I said," he bites out. "that we're not having this conversation."

"And I say that we _are_. Because seriously. You know why I came here? I saw Mikey on the wrong end of a beat-down. You think you could have stopped me? _Sensei_ couldn't have stopped me. So all your moping around and not talking to me–"

"Master Splinter died," Leo snaps, rounding on him, and Raph tenses instinctively. "You weren't here for that. You weren't here when we lost April, you didn't have to deal with Donnie freaking out for six whole months and Casey throwing himself at every guy in a suit just in case, and I quote, _those alien bastards got new faces_. _You_ weren't here when sensei died, you weren't here when we found what was left of the Foot, _you_ haven't had to deal with every new thing the Kraang threw at us, _you're not the only thing we lost_. So yes! I should have been able to stop you, _and_ Casey, _and_ April!"

Raph forces his shoulders to straighten in time with Leo's face dropping. "Huh." He swallows. "At least I know what's coming."

It shouldn't have been that easy to rile Leo up, and they both know it. Leo makes a rough sound in the back of his throat, dragging his left hand over the back of his head. "Raph– sorry. Sorry. I shouldn't have said any of that. No," He shakes his head when Raph tries to wave it off. "Forget what I said. We don't even know if you coming here _has_ changed things."

"Yeah, sure," Raph says, though the fight barely feels started. He stamps it down in his gut and casts for something else to talk about; Leo's avoided him for far too long. "So how'd you meet Angel?" he asks.

Leo smiles faintly. "She's a friend of Casey's. We met her about a year or so after April– yeah. She's a good person."

"She's a good shot," Raph throws out.

"That too."

Raph fidgets, awkward. "You happy?"

It's not what Leo says, but how he says it. He says " _yeah_ " with a slow sigh and a dippy half-smile. Raph makes a note to ask Casey, when he gets home, about any friends he has who might be a little cool with the whole green mutant thing. His next instinct is to ask about Splinter – or _Karai_ – but something in Raph's gut tells him that he doesn't want to know.

So he asks anyway.

About Splinter, at least.

Leo swallows. "There's a reason we don't live back in the old lair," he replies after a pause. "Raph, you don't need to know these things."

"No, I do."

"Why?" Leo snaps. "Donnie's going to send you back home, so whatever you get told about our world doesn't even apply to _your_ family. As far as they're concerned, you'll be gone for a couple of days, weeks max. But our Raph is gone and _my_ family has had to deal with that for the past twenty years."

Raph knows, before he even opens his mouth, that his face is firmly set to _not buying your shit, Leo_ : "Cause you did a hell of a job, right?"

Leo gapes. "What?"

"Sorry, did you want me to make a list of _what the hell did you let happen here_? So I was gone, and I bet that was terrible, 'cause I know how I'd feel if I lost one of _my_ brothers. But I'm pretty sure they wouldn't melt down like this!"

Of course they wouldn't.

Raph wouldn't let it.

Raph wouldn't let Casey run off and do whatever dumbshit routine he tried to pull trying to get into April's pants. He wouldn't let Casey freak out afterwards when the Kraang took her away, and he sure as hell would not let Donnie spend _twenty years_ burning bodies. "Because that's the thing, Leo. That's what I just don't get. 'Cause if your Donnie is anything like _my_ Donnie, you _know_. And all of this Code Yellow crap – you just let him and Casey handle it alone? It shouldn't even matter if they say they'll do it, you should fix it anyway! That's your _job_ , o fearless leader. You take out the trash, not let them hold a nice little funeral for it."

Leo's mouth twists. It's not a smile. "How'd you get your scar, Raph? Let me hear the story."

"I already told you, back when you found me the first time. I don't remember."

"And that's why I didn't cut you down."

"What," says Raph, and the muscles in his arms tense. "are you getting at?"

"I'm saying," Leo replies, and he makes sure to speak slowly, like Raph suddenly turned into Mikey or something. "that the only reason you're not _in the trash_ right now is because you gave the right answer. Donnie? You know what he's like. Any other person took out a clone, he'd freak because _what if she was the right one, Leo? How would_ you _know_?" he parrots. "But you said _I don't remember_. Not _information not found_ , not _I got it in a fight_. You don't remember, because you've always had it."

"So you're just letting Donnie off a bunch of clones because it's the nice thing to do." Raph scoffs despite himself; his mouth is full of spit and he has to force himself to swallow it. "Yeah. Right. Gotcha. And Casey?"

Leo just looks at him.

Raph drags a hand over his face, frustrated. "Okay, fine. Leader's got his reasons, everybody else just shuts his cakehole and follows along, right?"

Leo says nothing, which is answer enough, Raph supposes. He makes another mental note; this time, to sock his Leo in the face twice when he gets home. "Fine," he says again. "So what now?"

Leo turns to leave, and this time, Raph follows. "We need to get you home."

* * *

Angel has monopolised April in the kitchen and is hacking off clumps of brittle, miserable hair to make April look a little less like she's homeless. Casey is, by definition, allergic to anything remotely feminine (on the surface, but Raph knows that Casey has sat through _Tangled_ enough times with his little sister to quote the lantern scene by heart) and sits himself in front of the TV to watch the news, and Donnie is, frankly, terrified of Angel with a blade and so hibernates in his bedroom to work.

"Donnie?" Leo asks, rapping a knuckle against the door. "How's the portal coming?"

"Um," Donnie says, in a way that means _no_. "Well."

Leo shoots Raph a wary, weary look before hip-thumping Donnie's door open. "Raph needs to go home."

"Raph needs to _come_ home." Donnie huffs at them as he turns around, dragging his hands over his head. "Sorry. It'll be done, there's just a few more things I need to figure out first – time-travel and dimensional physics, Godel's theorems took a few hours to get through and–" he cuts himself off before he even starts, a brittle smile crossing his face. He looks at Raph. "Sorry. English, right?"

Raph can't stop his eyebrow from jumping up his face. "I have managed to watch a couple of geek movies in my life," he says, defensively.

"Right," Donnie replies, his smile turning into something thin. "Sorry. But anyway. I looked at all the evidence – how you arrived, things that have happened, the things you said about your timeline and– well, there's two options. Option one, is you're a time-traveller. You stepped through that portal and ended up twenty years in the future."

"What's option two?" Raph asks, at the same time as Leo says, "what about the other theory?"

Donnie shifts. "It sounds like a bad sci-fi show, but… parallel universe? No, no, hear me out. Every decision we make – the big ones, mostly, but small ones too – they have the potential to make a whole new universe. Here," he says, changing track and grabbing a piece of paper, drawing a thick black line that ended in a fork. "See this?" he asked, pointing at the joint. "That's you, when you decided to jump through the portal. This line, here, is a line where – where, I don't know what, exactly, but you came back healthy and alive and life went on. This one, though…"

"Is our one, where our Raph never came back," Leo puts in.

Donnie nods, his shoulders sagging. "We never did find out where our Raph went." His smile, if possible, thins further. "Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you _are_ our brother, you just got lost a little bit in time. Either way, we have to get you home."

Leo tugs the diagram – such as it is – away from Donnie and looks at it. "If we do that, doesn't that just delete this whole timeline?"

"Iiii'm not sure _Back to the Future_ is a great example of quantum physics. Besides, if that was the case, the Kraang would have gone back in time and bought us before Master Splinter did, and sold us to Murakami for soup. Or just thrown us in the Hudson, so we wouldn't get in their way."

"Yeah, we would have mutated even worse if we'd gone in there." Raph folds his arms. "I have to go home," he points out, not unkindly, but not exactly soft, either. He has to go home, _now_ , because these versions of his brothers are three green piles of a hot mess, and the thought of three turning into six is enough to make Raph's arms hurt with the need to tear into something, to rip it apart with his feet and his fists. If he can go home and somehow stop this future from ever existing, it needs to be done. "I mean, if I can stay and help a little longer, no problem, but I _am_ going home."

Donnie nods. "You are, I promise. Soon." He taps his fingers against his mouth. "It's just unfortunately not that simple as stepping through the portal again."

"Why not?" Leo asks.

"Well, for a start, they've changed their codes, so I'm going to take a wild guess and say that they're aware that we've got a device. Which means that they know we've got access to the tunnel, which means that probably, they've been camping in there since at least the time we got April back, maybe even as far back as when Raph jumped into our world. We walk through there–"

"We walk straight into an ambush," Leo finishes. "Damn."

The room goes quiet. Leo cracks his knuckles against his chest, but doesn't say anything else, and Donnie is silent too.

It's always bad when Donnie's quiet. Donnie hums and talks and sings his way through his brain-problems, and sometimes he screams and rages and blows himself out. Donnie _fights_ , in his own way – he can't throw a punch that Raph wouldn't catch, but Donnie can shriek and snarl until Raph admits he's wrong or goes away, and talk at a math problem until it cries for mercy. When Donnie's quiet, Raph realises, it's because he's beaten down.

 _I'll be in my lab_ , Raph's heard, way too many times to count over the years.

"Hey," Raph says. "Either way, we gotta do something."

"Yeah." Donnie taps his fingers against his mouth. "The problem is, _do what_? We got April out, sure, but they're going to come after her. And that's not to mention all of the clones they probably still have."

Raph shudders. Donnie doesn't.

Almost a week old, now, his Leo's voice comes back to him, warm and sly: " _Last Raph standing_?"

No, Raph thinks, his mouth curving into a vicious smile. Not last Raph standing. Last _Kraang_ standing.

He has an idea.

One of the things he's learned though, is that he can't just throw his idea out there yet. He has to let it percolate, a little, and more importantly he needs to wait for the right moment. Some parts of it are unlikely to go down well. Some parts of it are less ninja, more Michael Bay.

* * *

The next day, Raph takes up a pew in the living room while April spars gently with Mikey – just little basic kata to get her strength back. If she's throwing a little more weight behind her punches than she should, then Mikey isn't saying anything.

Leo's meditating in front of the tokonoma they have in a little alcove, the scent of incense nostalgic and kind. Casey is watching the hockey, and Donnie's sitting a little way apart from them, computer in his lap and acting like he doesn't care about sports.

(Donnie likes to play the smart-ass, all books and science.

His screensaver is the Baltimore Oriole, trussed up, stuffed and ready to be eaten.)

"Jones," Angel says, striding up to the couch. Wordless, Casey reaches up with his hand splayed for the hairbrush; Angel slaps it into his palm and vaults the couch, landing neatly between Casey's knees. "You pull it, I break something of yours."

"Whatever," Casey teases, whapping the back of her head with the brush before taking a chunk of hair in hand. "Shut up and watch the game. Watch your Devils get _wrecked_."

The TV flickers in time with April's furious yell in the training area. Casey leans his head back. "HEY RED. SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO WATCH THE TV. QUIT WITH THE VOODOO."

Donnie looks up, his brow knotted in concern. "The what?" He sits up straighter, his head snapping around to watch April. "April?"

April ignores him. Mikey ducks her punch and throws her across the room to land gently in a pile of soft cushions. Donnie glances at the light, pulls his Math Face for a second, and then gets to his feet. "April, you didn't tell me it was worse. How often does this happen?"

April shrugs, her mouth like a lock, and goes back to her fight. Donnie looks to Casey, who looks back and shrugs too. "April–" he tries again. "Maybe one of us should take a look at yo–"

"I don't need it."

"But April, this could–"

"I _said_ , 'back off'."

Donnie backs off. He practically jumps.

"Did you think they just kept me in a tank all this time?" April snaps, and slams her fist against Mikey's hand. "They made me _work_. They ran _tests_. So things changed."

Nobody asks what kind of tests; Raph swallows down his own questions the way he can see all of his brothers do. They can all guess – based on the tank they hauled her out of, the way the Kraang are just one or two miles over the moral event horizon, and the brain toothpick April narrowly avoided when she was sixteen.

Casey looks like he's either going to punch someone or hurl – or both. Everyone else looks a different shade of pissed, from the way Angel's mouth presses together to the ice-cold looks of murder on his three brothers.

Raph, though?

Raph's got an idea. Another one – yeah, even he's surprised, he tells the snotty versions of his brothers in his head. And he's the only one who can come up with something like this. Donnie fights dirty, sometimes, but not this dirty. Mikey? Nah. And Leo's too honourable for something like this, no matter how many times Master Splinter tries to drill it into him that they are _ninja_ , not samurai. You stab the guy in the back, not let him take a fair shot.

Raph's the one who always has to come up with the _really_ dirty ideas. Let's throw Chris Bradford off a roof, Leo!

Let's betray Karai, Leo!

Let's use April for bait, Leo.

* * *

 **I think one more chapter and an epilogue will do it! thank you again, so much, for reading!**


	6. Part five -- The last few days

we're almost there...

almost.

* * *

 **The Other Side of the Wrong Door  
Part 5: The last few days**

* * *

"You want to _what_!?" Leo and Donnie both snap, perfectly in sync.

Raph winces. "Okay, look, I'm not the science guy, but–"

"Clearly!"

"Look, at least with my idea, we end up with a few less Kraang across every multiverse!"

"Or, we piss off the entirety of Dimension X so they just pour in here, _great idea Raph_." Donnie gets to his feet, his hands smoothing over the top of his head as he paces. "I can't even start counting the number of ways that could go wrong – _oh wait, I can_! Number _one_ –"

Raph rolls his eyes, and tunes Donnie out. He's missing the point. Leo always makes neat, perfect plans that are good and just and honourable. Donnie makes ten back-up plans in case everything goes wrong. Mikey tries to overcomplicate things with big flashy theatrics, sometimes, or he just goes off into Mikeyspace where one plus two equals kitten and expects everyone else to follow.

That _isn't_ what they need here.

"I just think it's worth a shot," he says, arms folded.

"And use _April_ as part of your–" Donnie shakes his head and turns away. "No. Not happening. You can't possibly think that we'd _ever_ –"

"–it's not going to happen, Raphael, not now, not ever." Leo finishes his sentence with a swipe of his hand through the air. Something feels off for a second, when Leo and Donnie look at each-other, and Raph realises, with an angry rip in his chest, that Leo thinks that Raph's idea is a trap.

"Look," he interrupts, before he's sentenced, with judge, jury and executioner as one brother. "You want to get rid of as many Kraang as possible? Then give them a reason to come over here!"

"Yeah," April agrees, from behind them. Guiltily, they all jump and turn to look at her. Even with Angel's mama-bearing, she still looks like a ghoul, her cheeks hollow, and her eyes dark and angry. "I think it's a good idea."

"April," Leo says warily. "Think about this. We can't just walk in there again."

"No, but what we can do is stand outside. Donnie, you still have explosives, right?"

"…I can get some, but– but this is the _stupidest idea,_ April, do you really think–"

She folds her arms, giving them all a sharp, cold look that makes her eyes look like ice. Donnie wilts, and Raph can't blame him. "I think I want to kill some Kraang. The more the merrier."

* * *

The plan takes another day to hash out in full – for all of Leo's plans, Donnie has two back-up plans, and Casey three questions. April spends chunks of time sparring with Mikey – in her own words, she doesn't care what the plan is, so long as there _is_ a plan, and the plan results in every single Kraang they can get dying.

This is not good, on _so_ many levels. Raph's not the only person to have noticed it – Donnie's face creases into worry, Leo looks shifty as hell, and Casey just lets his head sink.

"You okay?" Raph asks, when the war council takes a break for Angel to run topside for groceries. Casey smiles, but it's not even a quarter-smile.

"I'm good."

"You're not." Raph knows Casey – knows every Casey, as far as he's concerned. This Casey can't be that much different, not with just a little sideways shift. All of them are bad with guilt, and Caseys handle it in much the same way Leos do – brooding and bearing the world on their shoulders. This Casey has so much guilt that it's choking him, a sack of sand on his shoulders that's started to warp around his neck and press against the jugular. The cloth needs to be cut; Raph just needs to find the knife that'll do it without bleeding Casey out.

Across the room, April's in front of the TV, engrossed in the daily news report while catching up on everything she missed on Donnie's laptop. "She missed a lot," Raph prompts quietly. "You tried filling her in?"

"She's okay."

"You sure?" Casey knocks back his drink, then wipes his mouth on his sleeve, and Raph ignores the blocking tactic. "Seriously, man."

"Look, Raph, I get what you're trying to do," Casey says heavily. "I do. But I just– I can't."

Raph gets that. But, "You kinda don't have a choice." Casey shrugs and oh dear Christ no, this is not happening. If April goes off the rails, Casey needs to bring her back, not let her crash. "Look," he says, shifting forward so that he's entirely in Casey's vision. "either you talk to her now, or you sit on your thumbs and wait until after we waste the Kraang."

Something sharpens in Casey's face. After isn't something any of them have spoken about, because _after_ might not actually happen. And there's another thing that needs to be fixed, too: if this is going to work, they have to be able to have each-other's backs. And if Casey and April are still shading around each-other because of something that went wrong twenty years ago, they can't take that into a fight. It's one of the oldest lessons Master Splinter taught them: take nothing into battle but what you _need_.

"Yeah," Casey says, heavily. "but–"

"Case," Raph interrupts. "Don't be a dick. Go talk to her." He leans across the table, ready to lie just a little bit: "If Donnie could do it, so can you."

Casey is the closest thing to normal Raph has in the base, so he takes the punch to the arm with good humour (mostly, because even if Casey's older, he doesn't punch Raph like he's punching a kid, but punching _Raph_ ), and lets Casey clap him on the shoulder as he gets up. "Okay, _Dear Raphie_ ," Casey says, turning and digging in the fridge for a fresh six of cheap beer. Saluting, he makes his way out of the kitchenette and over to the TV. "If it'll get you off my back."

Of course Raph watches, to make sure that Casey doesn't chicken out.

Across the room, April looks up sharply as Casey dangles a bottle in front of her face, all lopsided and rueful when he says "Happy late 21st" and vaults the couch to sit next to her.

"You owe me more than just one drink, Casey," she says slyly, but takes the beer from him anyway.

When he's sure that April's not going to smash the bottle into Casey's throat, Raph turns back towards the kitchen table to wash up, and Mikey sneaks in behind him. "Huh," he says, rubbing his shoulders. "So that's what it was." He nods back at April and Casey.

"Yeah, I know there's the whole _don't let Raph break the future_ thing going on, but I do not know what you're talking about with the whole April thing. Everyone can feel when she's sad or something? She can magically blow the lights?"

"Not my order," Mikey says, opening the cupboard and groaning when it comes up empty for whatever it is he's looking for.

"Angel's gone to the store." Mikey doesn't look back, and Raph forces his hands to curl at his sides, instead of in front of him. His brief note of happiness at getting Casey off his ass has died out already, in favour of good old-fashioned pissed off. "And bull _shit_ it's not your order, I'm your _brother_."

"Talk to Leo."

"I don't _want_ to talk to Leo, I want you to tell me what the hell I'm going back to."

Mikey turns, glaring down at Raph. " _Talk to Leo_ ," he snaps, with a snap of authority in his voice.

Raph's jaw drops.

While he's still trying to find words amid the outrage, Mikey's face softens, and he pats Raph's shoulder, kind and supportive, the way Raph pats _his_ Mikey's shoulder sometimes. The only thing Raph can think to do is to knock Mikey's hand away, slapping it roughly. "I don't _want_ to talk to Leo," he says again, this time slowly, more deliberately, just in case Mikey didn't get it the first time around.

Mikey's eyes flash, but the anger Raph was hoping for is gone before it gets the chance to kindle, and instead he turns to the fridge and pulls out a half-empty gallon of milk. "You want some cocoa?" He shakes the carton so that it sloshes. Raph scowls. What he wants is for Mikey to do what Mikey's _supposed_ to do, which is give Raph what he wants.

"No." Raph snaps, his words in a rush of heat. "I don't want any _cocoa_ , I want to know what the hell is going on here. Stop talking to me like I'm your kid brother!"

Mikey turns, half-way across to the microwave, and gives Raph a look that is slow and full of sympathy – _pity_.

It feels like the ground is cracking beneath Raph's feet.

* * *

He doesn't get the chance to talk to Leo again.

Or Donnie.

Angel comes back with a sack of food and a phone number of a guy who knew a guy who knew her dad, and when the next round of imports from Eastern Europe comes in at the docks in the morning, Donnie is getting a whole new crate of dangerous, illegal toys. Tomorrow night, Leo says, coming back in from training, they're making their move.

Raph shakes his wrists out from his own training – six days away from home, training with what feel like the most basic of kata compared to how advanced his brothers are now, he can feel himself getting sluggish. Six days without a fight, a good fight, is too long. It's time to get this over and done with.

* * *

Angel produces her weapons over breakfast, and Donnie goes gaga over a rocket launcher which he immediately takes off to his room. Over lunch, he marches out, his arrival heralded by the clang-thunk of Metalhead's big ugly feet marching in front of him.

Because the plan is this:

Metalhead, hooked up to the portal (the same way Raph's Donnie had done, a week ago), will open the door and April, guarded by Donnie, will go in and become the fox to a billion slavering hounds. Angel, along with Casey and Mikey, will go light up TCRI like it's July Fourth. Raph and Leo set up reflectors.

"You're kidding," Raph says bluntly, and folds his arms. "We get to play decorators? No way."

"Yes way," Leo shoots back. "You want this to work, you do it how I say."

"This was _my_ plan."

"And _I'm_ going to make sure it succeeds." Leo folds his arms too, looking every inch the leader that Raph knows that deep down he's _not_. "You're staying with me."

"No," Raph argues. "I'm taking out some Kraang." He pulls a sai out to make the point. "I'm not gonna sit around and let you _babysit_ me–"

Leo interrupts him, getting to his feet and getting in Raph's face. "You're _staying with me_. Think, Raph. If anything happens to you, what happens? You _can't go home_. And this whole thing happens all over again. So if you want to go home and change the future or whatever it is you've been whining to Mikey about wanting to do this past week, you'll _do what I say_."

One thing he's going to change, Raph promises himself silently, is that the second his Leo starts getting an attitude like this Leo, he's going to hold his head in the nastier of the algae pools until he passes out.

They move out at sundown.

Donnie takes April aside, fitting her with a headset and some kind of battle armour and a brand-new tessen, shiny and sharp and deadly, and Raph doesn't pay attention to the way Donnie's hands linger on her face, or the way April lets them. Whatever's been said between April and his brother needed to be said, one way or another.

Mikey hums until Angel shushes him, and then Raph can hear him setting things up in such a way that each bolt and every plugged wire keep making a happy little death-beat. Casey makes sure all of his hockey sticks are shiny and clean.

Leo meditates in front of the tokonoma again; the picture of their father still in a frame, set on top of Splinter's worn burgundy obi, stares down at him.

* * *

Of course something goes wrong.

Raph and Leo are half-way through setting up Donnie's reflector dishes when Angel calls them through the radio.

 _Leo_ , she says, terse and tense. _Leo, there's a problem_.

Leo gets to his feet, striding to the other side of the roof – like Raph can't hear through his _own_ radio, but let Leo have the illusion of privacy if he wants. "What's wrong?" Leo asks. "Talk to me."

 _There's a problem with one of the detonators. Dammit, I_ knew _we should have tested this cheap shit!_

April's voice comes in next: _What do you mean, 'there's a problem'?_

And then Mikey's: _Uh, yeah, it's… kinda trying to go off_ now _. Like, we turned it off for now but this is way more trigger-happy than it should be._

Raph's inner monologue quickly descends into _oh shit oh shit oh shit_ territory, and he looks straight to Leo, who looks worse than Raph feels. "We can't do that," Leo says, hand to his ear, at the same time that Donnie says _wait, what?_ followed by _Leo, we are halfway into the middle of Kraang Country, do not tell me we have to shut this down_.

Raph keeps his mouth shut. Leo starts to pace, trying to make some kind of decision; the type of decision that Raph hates, that he's made once in his life and hated every second.

 _We don't_ , Casey says, while Leo thinks. _I'll stay behind. It's easy. I'll set it off_.

Six other voices instantly jump into the conversation, each of them arguing until the feedback shuts everyone up with a rough squeal of noise that makes Raph's shoulders shiver. _I'm serious_ , Casey goes on. _We only get one shot at this._ _If it's our only option, I'll stay._

 _Bullshit_ , Angel snaps. _We'll figure something out. I can stay if I have to–_

Leo interrupts her, quietly. "Angel, don't." He chews on his knuckle. "We'll think of something."

 _Leo, we don't have time._

 _I'm serious!_ There's the sound of shuffling at the other end of the radios. _Angel can go. I'll stay. Donnie, tell me how to set this stuff off_.

Raph drags a hand across his face. Everything was going _so well_ – but when have they ever had good luck, he thinks bitterly. Of course Casey will want to stay, because there's no way in hell Casey's sloping back alone, leaving another person behind.

But there's no way that Raph is even considering leaving anybody behind. "Are you kidding me!?" He throws an arm out. "No. Casey, no. That's the same dumb thing Leo tried to pull back when we were fifteen, and you're not Leo." Leo shoots him a look, and Raph meets it with a flat look of his own. He is never letting Leo live that down; not now, not ever. "You think blowing yourself up is– what, you think this is some kind of– that it'll make it all better?"

On the other end of the radio, Casey hesitates.

"Everyone who thinks that Casey is being a dumbass, say 'aye'."

April's voice comes through immediately, a short, sharp _ha_! that Raph takes for agreement.

 _Angel_ , Donnie comes across the line, his voice distant and echoing. _What's the_ actual _problem? Talk me through it_.

 _I don't know! We're trying to set it off, and it's not working, the counter keeps screwing around._

"Donnie?" Leo asks.

 _It'll be okay_ , Donnie says. _Just stay calm. Did you take the toolkit with you?_

All the tension starts to bleed out of Leo as soon as Donnie starts talking Angel through how to trade it for the one supposed to blow second. _Got it_ , she says, and she, Casey and Mikey start the countdown by starting to run. They stop four blocks away to set up one last reflector, and then that's it, job done.

 _Leo_ , Mikey says, his voice cracking. _What if this doesn't work_?

"It's not the first time the odds have been pretty much zero," Raph throws out.

"It'll work," Leo says, firm, his shell still turned to Raph. "Just make sure you're ready."

 _If you say so_ , Mikey replies. _But, seriously bro, if I end up in a tank, I'm gonna pee in yours_.

 _You mind shutting the hell up_? April snaps across the radio, and Mikey falls silent. Through her headset, April sounds like she's sprinting, and Raph can imagine it – April at the front, Donnie right behind her and Metalhead, whichever version of Donnie's pet tin can this is, bringing up the rear.

"Besides, it's a good plan. We'll be home before you know it."

Raph has to shake his head a little before that registers. Leo's still staring at the set-up, his eyes flicking between where they know that Angel and Casey are hiding out, where Mikey is concealed in shadow, and where Donnie, April and Metalhead are going to come from, hopefully leading all the Kraang of New York.

"Are you kidding?" Raph asks, and shakes his head. "It's a terrible plan."

"Well, okay, yeah, but we _make_ it good."

It takes Raph half a second to realise that Leo's snarking — more importantly, Leo's snarking _with_ him.

When he looks up, for the first time in a long time, for the first time in what feels like far too long, Leo's looking at him like a brother, not a threat, not a grenade with a broken pin. There's rueful humour, and Leo's constant, calm will, and below it all, faith.

All Leos always have that; it doesn't matter how bad things get, Leonardo will always believe in his family. Faith keeps him strong, and when Leo _believes_ in something, it doesn't matter how ridiculous things are – they'll come through, because Leo knows they will.

"I feel sorry for the Kraang," Raph says. His smile is lopsided when Leo finally touches his shoulder, and they fall silent, waiting the last few minutes before TCRI goes up in flames, and Donnie and April come out of the portal, probably with a million Kraang trailing behind.

* * *

They're close enough that, when TCRI blows, they can hear the windows smashing and the fire roaring, and Raph forces himself to focus on the good things they're burning – every single Kraang in there, every stupid robot, every sick experiment – and not the bad things – every defective clone who just wanted a life. Prisoners they never knew existed. Leo's face is taut and grim and Raph forces himself to take some kind of comfort out of the fact that his big brother's feeling the exact same thing.

The portal opens, a flare of pink in the middle of the street, and Donatello pushes April out, shadowing her with himself to block the laser fire with his shell. Behind them, Metalhead, the world's most ridiculous Swiss Army robot, with bat-wings and a flamethrower, gives them some breathing room. Donnie sets April up at the corner of Canal and Bowery, adjusting something on her headset, and from the top of the buildings, they all watch as she hauls him close for one tight second before he has to go.

On the ground, April looks impossibly small and vulnerable, out in the open with no visible backup but for Metalhead, whose head is now mostly satellite dish. This has to work, Raph thinks. Because if it doesn't, that's Donnie done.

"On three." Leo hunkers down low. Donnie signals back – _everything is a-go_ – before he and Casey hunker down themselves and wait. Somewhere out of sight, Angel and Mikey are ready to run riot if they need a distraction.

Raph has to force himself not to fidget, though he re-adjusts the doofy headset Donnie had made for them for the eighth time anyway; they don't sit right, but why would they?

Everything comes down to this. If this doesn't work, if things go wrong, he's stuck here.

If it doesn't work, they get to watch April get torn apart, and this world gets permanently stuffed with Kraang.

If this doesn't work, this whole thing will happen again, with his brothers, in his world.

"Two," Leo says, and Donnie readies the reflectors.

 _One_ , says Casey.

Down below, April nods, and they hear her over the radio: "Hi," she says to the Kraang. "Miss me?"

Her hands reach for her temples, and she lets rip. The headset channels it through the reflectors, through New York, through the portal, and through a big enough chunk of Dimension X to count.

There's no sound.

Just a thick, dull _whumpf_ in the air, as a million tiny Kraang suffer a million tiny strokes.

* * *

As they all drop from the rooftops to the ground, April staggers, one hand up to her temple. Her nose is bleeding, but she knocks Donnie's nervous hands away as he reaches for her. "I'm fine. I'm fine." Around them, robots are slowly shutting down in quiet metallic whines. The creatures inside them are silent, fluid dripping from their mouths. "Did we get them?" She drags her arm across the back of her mouth, smearing blood along her arm and teeth. Her gaze jumps from dead Kraang to dead Kraang, and her smile sharpens to something vicious. "Good." She wavers, and this time doesn't shove Donnie's steadying hand away, nor Casey when he immediately steps to her side. She throws her headset down.

Across the yard, on the far edge of the blast radius, one Kraang remains, its nasty tentacles twitching weakly at the air as it squeaks for help – or mercy. It falls out of its robot with a wet _thlup_. April moves one step, then glares at Casey as he pulls her back. "What?" she snarls, then softens when Casey hands her his very favourite hockey stick.

Everyone holds their breath as she makes her way across the yard, but nobody follows her. This is something April needs to do for herself.

If this was one of the dorky anime that Mikey found in a dumpster, there'd be some kind of speech about how _good will always prevail_ , or _this is revenge for my father!_. In the sappier shows, April might even grant the shitty little thing forgiveness.

But April is from New York, and, more importantly, she's been stuck in a tank for twenty years.

She beats the thing so hard that Casey's hockey stick shines in the streetlight.

"Uh," Mikey starts to say, but Donnie covers his mouth.

When the Kraang stops screaming, April turns back to the others, wild-eyed and panting. "Angel?" she asks, then swallows. The hockey stick falls from between her loose fingers. "Angel."

Angel ratchets her shotgun and steps up. She's gentle but firm when she murmurs into April's ear, guiding April's hands into position, one hand on the stock, the other ready to fire. They can't hear whatever it is Angel's telling April, but a few seconds later, April relents and takes a good few paces backwards.

With Angel at her back to steady her, April takes in a sharp, long breath, aims, and pulls the trigger.

It's the first time Raph has ever seen one of them with a firearm – as much as he likes Angel, he doesn't have her back home, and the fight is still fought with steel and light. April, with her hair scruffed up and her cheek pressed up against Angel's shotgun, looks like she's just stepped out of a videogame. There's a cruel, angry slant to her mouth that makes Raph want to shudder, to throw her over his shoulder and haul her back home, _his_ home, back when none of this had happened yet.

Sensei had talked about _the butterfly effect_ , once. How a butterfly flapping its wings in France caused a typhoon in the Pacific, or something like that. Chain reactions. Raph gone meant Casey had no leash, meant April got hauled in for doing something stupid, meant twenty years like this. Twenty years of April in a tank, of Donnie falling apart, of Casey falling more. Leo sharpening distrust into another blade, of steel being replaced with shotguns. Of April beating a Kraang to death and then getting covered with the spatter when she shot it into the sidewalk.

This is something Raph refuses to let happen to his family. His fists tighten into heavy balls at his side.

"April," Leo calls, across the yard. "You okay?"

"For now," April says tersely, jerking her head back towards the spray on the pavement. "That's a message for them."

Leo holds up his hands. He's trying to look stern and like a leader should, but there's a glint in his eye that Raph recognises – his big brother's impressed. Or terrified. Either way, he says "Okay", then turns to the others. "We're done here?"

"Yeah," April replies, before the others can reply. "We're done. I want to go home, Leo."

* * *

 **just the epilogue to go!**

 **thank you again for following along with this story 3 i really, really appreciate it!**


	7. Epilogue: Homecoming

and so, the door must close.

* * *

 **The Other Side of the Wrong Door  
Epilogue: Homecoming**

* * *

Two days after the fight, Raph's watching TV with Casey, Angel and April when Donnie peeks his head into the living room. He's smiling.

It's a smile Raph doesn't see too often on his brother – the smile that means everything's gone right, for once. The smile Donnie wore when they first took the Shellraiser out, and when they _all_ learned how to make smoke bombs, not just him. The smile he wears when April's perfected a new kata, and when Metalhead took his first steps again.

"Raph?" he says. "I think I figured it out. Time to send you back."

They all pile into Donnie's room, looking through the window into Raph's New York. Raph's lair, to be precise; the portal is open in Donnie's lab, and his little brother is asleep over his desk, his hand clutching a beaker and his face smushed against his keyboard. "That's the one," Raph says, with an air of finality. "Guess I'll go home."

Mikey hugs him first, a shell-crushing thing that leaves Raph seeing spots in front of his eyes. Leo's at least a little gentler. "What about you guys?" Raph asks, when Donnie finally steps back. "I mean, the Kraang can still get into your world, right?"

Donnie looks to Leo, who nods slowly. "We'll close it," he says. "The portal. It's for the best. The fewer doors the Kraang have, the better. If we close the door, it'll hopefully be a while before they realise which universe is gone for them."

Makes sense. It doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt, a dull thud in his chest. They're not his brothers, but… these are his _brothers_.

"Take care, Raph," Leo says, making a gentle, ushering movement towards the portal.

Raph swallows, then smiles as he steps through. On the other side, his other brothers are tinged in pink, and their Donnie's already reaching up to close the way. "Yeah. You guys too. Good luck finding… uh. Your me."

* * *

Of all the things Raph expects as part of his welcome-home lecture – the relieved, grateful, _deeply disappointed_ look on Master Splinter's face, for example – the one thing he can really do without is five whole minutes of Donnie's voice, shrill and screaming: "EIGHT PORTALS, RAPH. I had to look for you across EIGHT PORTALS, NIGHT AND _DAY_ , we were dodging so many Kraang I thought there was going to be another INVASION, AND," he took a breath, " _and_ , if I have to watch Karai _PUKING GREEN DOGS AGAIN_ I WILL BLAME _YOU_."

Raph can't be sure his facial expression is truly expressing his inner-reaction of _dude, what?_ , but in the face of Hurricane Donnie, there's nothing he can do but wait for the storm to pass, which it does, as Donnie's storms always do – blowing themselves out with a whoosh of air and a look on his little brother's face that is absolutely gutting.

It's like he's just kicked a big, green puppy while stealing his toy, with the sad brown eyes to boot.

 _We never did find our Raph_.

"We were lucky this time," his Donnie says, quieter this time. "Whoever you were with, they were good people. But I don't know if– next time– If I couldn't get you back, I'd never forgive myself."

"They _were_ good people," he replies, thinking of the other Donnie, tall and brittle, and Casey with his arm slung around Donnie's shoulders and April tucked between them. Leo, mother-henning, and Mikey, with the same smile as Raph's Mikey. Of Angel, and the other lair.

He thinks of the sad little clone, and the way TCRI went up like a bonfire with the rest of her copies inside.

All good people.

Donnie huffs at him. "Like I said. We were lucky."

When Donnie finally dismisses him, with his hands jerking as though not sure whether or not it's okay to throttle him or just hug him, Raph heads to the kitchen to go fridge-diving.

As he crosses the lair, he figures that he's going to have to get used to the moon-eyed looks from his brothers over the next few days – _yeah, I'm back, I'm not going anywhere, can we please stop with the staring_? – the same way Leo had to deal with the _YOU'RE NOT DEAD_ parade way back when, and how Donnie got all of the fuss after Slash almost tore his arm off. Leo actually stops watching his nerd-show, while Mikey beams at him from over a comic book, and actually, it's not the same smile at all. This one's brighter, warm like the sun in June instead of the thaw of winter-chilled hands coming in from the cold.

There's some leftover bologna in the fridge, some cheese and one of those bags of pre-packed salad that April keeps buying them and only Splinter seems to eat. It's not the tidiest sandwich Raph has ever made (the butter is too cold and tears a chunk out of the bread), but it'll do, and he sets it up on a plate with a mug of coffee, because god knows Donnie won't even consider anything that's not going to rot his empty stomach if it'll keep him awake another hour or two.

The lab door is still open when Raph heads back. Donnie's still sitting at his desk, his head bowed, hands together and mouth pressed against his fingers. It's Donnie's _go away I'm thinking_ pose, and Raph doesn't care.

Mikey's easy – well, not _easy_ , now that Raph has lived in Mikey's place, but easier than others. Raph doesn't even know where to begin with Leo just yet. Better to start small, start simple. Leo can wait one more day.

He shoves the sandwich under Donnie's arm, so that it appears right under his nose.

"I– what?" Donnie asks, blinking, and then peering up.

Raph stares resolutely at the wall, before side-eying him. "Did you even eat at all while I was gone?"

Donnie opens his mouth to reply, and then closes it. No, he didn't, Raph fills in, because Donnie doesn't eat when he's working on something. Donnie doesn't eat when he's distracted, or busy, or freaking out about _something_ or other. The most he would have done would have been a grudging chug of miso soup that Leo stared him into drinking, or a handful of algae to shut his stomach up.

"Just eat." Obediently, Donnie crams half a piece into his mouth, and barely chews it before swallowing it. Raph rolls his eyes, nudging over the coffee. "Here, before you choke."

Donnie sniffs it lightly, taking a sip before pulling a face. "Decaf?"

"At eleven-thirty at night? Decaf."

"What are you, gelding me?"

Raph doesn't even know what that means. This time, though, he sits on April's chair and asks for the definition, first, before he tells Donnie what a nerd he is.

("Dude, _gross_. Shut up and drink.")

* * *

 **and that's it, we're done!**

 **huge enormous thanks to dawntreaderflynne, snuffes (on tumblr) and theherocomplex for letting me reference their excellent fics, Adventures in Turtle Sitting, the Sea Turtles AU and Gates of Summer respectively, as the worlds seen through the portals.**

 **more importantly, a huge thanks to everybody who reviewed: BubblyShell22, RascalKat, zodiology, Wolfy5678, Koalagriton, Silexwitch, GuestGirl, and all of the anonymous guests, and everyone who followed and favourited - it really meant a lot. To those who followed this story when it was first posted on Tumblr, thank you as well - from the bottom of my heart. Until next time! -tea**


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